is there an eruption of evil in the US ?? is evil real ??

[Pogo]

Hey, all four of my children will take all the prayers you want to send!

They are happy, well adjusted with one being just a tad of a "born again" mindset but all in all they turned out remarkably well. I believe in corporal punishment for challenges to my authority and unconditional love.

If I am evil I will be judged so by one greater than you. I believe you are just mistaken but you are free to be whatever you want.

Corporal punishment for challenges to your unconditional love?

Must be interesting at your house...

Spare the rod and spoil the child.

Did you hear of mass school shootings back when every teacher had a paddle in the chalk tray?

Ah another point sails over another head. I really don't aim these things high. I really don't.

Reading is a lost art.

 

[Pogo]

i think evil is real .I think it is a force that we should study scientifically . humans are the only species that will kill for the sake of killing alone .

Really? There are cases of weasels, wolves , sharks and great apes killing and leaving the dead corpses to rot. Usually humans have some sort of reason behind killing - even if it makes no sense to some - it must to the killer.

true ,but sometimes animal fight over territory ect .... some humans will kill for the thrill like serial killers do.

True or not, it doesn't prove that "evil" as an entity exists.

You can't prove the existence of "Evil" any more than you can prove the existence of "Go(o)d".

Where's the beef? No beef, no belief.

 

[Pogo]

Let me put it this way; we, humans, don't like to think of ourselves as being bad or even doing things that cause discomfort to others. If there is "evil" out there that makes us do things that we wouldn't normally do then it isn't our fault. The "evil" made me do it. I don't have to take responsibility for the damage I do because it was done through me , not I doing it. I can be forgiven for temporarily allowing the evil to overcome me. The obvious thing that arises from that view is that we can't be responsible for the good we do either. It comes from the "external good" working through us and not I doing it.

The problem with the idea of good and evil is that it takes away from what we are. We are thinking beings that choose to behave as we do. We are responsible for our actions, whether they are pleasing or not. only when we accept that will we hold ourselves and others responsible for the actions that we and others perform. Only then can we take pride in being better than we were or growing in wisdom. Of course that means that we have to be culpable when we do something wrong. We have to make the attempt to set it right and then we have to forgive ourselves for the wrong-doing and admit that we are only human.
Too many people would rather "blame it on the devil" than accept that mankind is capable of both the ugliest of violence and the beauty of love.
Evil is only in the mind of man. Good is only in the mind of man. We are human and that means we make mistakes. We sometimes use the worst tools at our disposal and it causes tremendous pain and suffering. Sometimes madness takes our ability to reason away and we act like animals. When our actions are beyond the scope of what we would like to be (in a good or bad way) we would rather give the credit or blame to something else. It removes the pressure to conform to an unrealistic expectation.
We have laws to punish those who do things that injure others. We do that so that we can say that we live by the law and those that don't can be removed from society. We don't have laws that can punish us for not being better than the rest of society but we do reward that kind of action in individuals or groups. So the "bad" people get punished and the "good" people get rewarded and we feel good about ourselves.
There are not many people in our prisons that admit to doing anything wrong - but they have been convicted of crimes against other people. How can they believe they did nothing wrong?

One of these days when I wish I could rep a poster twice in a row. Beautifully put.

Personifiying (or spiritifying) the concept of "evil" is a crutch. To establish a dichotomy of "good forces" and "evil foces" is to pave over, ignore and despise nuance and deeper nature. The philosophical equivalent of the television lowest common denominator. Abject laziness of the mind. Perhaps our remote ancestors of millennia ago were simple enough to need this crutch; we shouldn't be.

 

[PaulS1950]

unconditional love: loving one regardless of their actions and also enough to allow them to take the consequences of their actions.

If you challenge authority as an adult then you will suffer the consequences. Not teaching your children that lesson is abuse or at the very least neglect.

 

[midcan5]

I believe people are born with the innate knowledge of what is right and wrong...

While we are hardly blank slates, much of what we know and do is given to us in our social setting, historical time, cultural setting, and family dynamics. Below are two videos that touch on evil, both worth a listen. Evil can be learned quite easily. Book noted too. (YouTube contains language some may find offensive.)

Philip Zimbardo: The psychology of evil | Video on TED.com

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s]Brown eyes and blue eyes Racism experiment (Children Session) - Jane Elliott - YouTube[/ame]


[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Evil-Ordinary-Genocide-Killing/dp/0195189493/ref=pd_cp_b_2]Amazon.com: Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (9780195189490): James Waller: Books[/ame]



"The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbors as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant of others when we tolerate ourselves." Eric Hoffer

 

[Pogo]

unconditional love: loving one regardless of their actions and also enough to allow them to take the consequences of their actions.

If you challenge authority as an adult then you will suffer the consequences. Not teaching your children that lesson is abuse or at the very least neglect.

I know, Paul. I was just riffing on your sentence construction to make a cheap joke.

I'm cheap that way.

 

[Pogo]

I believe people are born with the innate knowledge of what is right and wrong...

While we are hardly blank slates, much of what we know and do is given to us in our social setting, historical time, cultural setting, and family dynamics. Below are two videos that touch on evil, both worth a listen. Evil can be learned quite easily. Book noted too. (YouTube contains language some may find offensive.)

Philip Zimbardo: The psychology of evil | Video on TED.com

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s]Brown eyes and blue eyes Racism experiment (Children Session) - Jane Elliott - YouTube[/ame]


[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Evil-Ordinary-Genocide-Killing/dp/0195189493/ref=pd_cp_b_2]Amazon.com: Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (0000000000000): James Waller: Books[/ame]



"The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbors as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant of others when we tolerate ourselves." Eric Hoffer

Outstanding video. What a great teacher. My blue eyes were tearing the whole way through.

Of course I noticed the teacher was lefthanded; everybody knows lefties are more creative...

No seriously, what a great exercise. Should be required viewing.

 

[SayMyName]

Evil seems so religious a term.

Yet, if one used the term malevolence, or the willingness to do harm to others, regardless how they define their actions (e.g., "We are doing this for your own good, or, everyone should pay for this or that regardless whether they need or use it, or, he killed 20 people because of his childhood...)

Then...I say it does, and is growing.